Adventures in Latin America

Alausí, Ecuador in March 2023

I was recently reminded of an event that occurred while I was in Ecuador in March of 2023.  I had been participating in a Christian youth camp in the town of La Maná.  I was with a couple of other workers (Rick and DeAnna) there that wanted to visit Cuenca.  None of us had visited it before so we traveled there.  Once we had taken Cuenca in, we began our trek back to Quito from which we would take a plane back home.

It was March and the weather had been very rainy. Our return from Quito took us through the small Andean village of Alausi from which we would take the Panamerican Highway back to Quito.

Alausí is in a valley that hugs some steep mountain slopes. These slopes have deep ravines and unstable volcanic soils.  With the record rains the region was experiencing that month a disaster was in the making.

When we approached Alausí we encountered a partially blockaded road with a warning sign - but no clear detour other than to return to where we had been.  Rick, who spent his youth in Ecuador (and therefore our expert) urged DeAnna, who was driving at the time, to continue through it.  The town was close by.  So, we did. We saw the road to the town but decided to proceed as everything still looked fine.  Suddenly we were blocked by a small landslide that had earlier covered over the road.

Makeshift Road around Landslide

There was a makeshift road downslope from edge of the landslide, so we drove down to look at it. Upon inspection we determined it was only fit for motorcycles and high clearance off road vehicles.  We turned around and headed into the town.

Rick talked to some of the locals and discovered that not only was the road impassable, but the alternative route through the town to the Panamerican Highway was blocked by a protest. Locals had decided to use the landslide as a way to express their grievances about insufficient infrastructure from the government.  There was a path to the Panamerican, but it would be an adventure.

We decided to get a bite to eat in a restaurant that was open in the town before we set out on this two-hour detour.  It wasn't a place we would have chosen normally, but it was open. We had some pollo y papas fritas. It was acceptable but not particularly good.

We got back in the car and Rick took the wheel. We followed the instructions to take a winding gravel road over a mountain on to Guamote.  We drove about fifteen minutes and encountered a fork in the road.  We took one of the forks.  It led us back into the town.  So we returned to the road and took it back to the fork then we took the other one.

The trip was nearly two hours long.  The path was foggy with frequent light rain.  Streams of water washed down the road on one side or the other, occasionally snaking across the road in small, but crossable creeks. Cars and trucks were inching past each other as we all competed to make a one lane gravel path a two-lane thoroughfare. 

If front of us were locals who had procured a taxi to evacuate Alausí.  Every few hundred meters they would get out of the taxi and walk behind it as it inched ahead.  Apparently, they feared he would careen over the side of mountain.

For us, Rick drove slowly and intently.  I looked over the edge to assure his tires would remain on the road. DeAnna was our prayer warrior from the back seat.

When we arrived at the Panamerican Highway, we stopped for a restroom break and to refuel.  I took over the driving the remainder of the way to our hotel near the Quito airport. 

We thought our adventures were over. They were, but later the next day we learned that the small landslide had grown into a large landslide a short eighteen hours after our time there.  It filled the stadium in Alausí (which is visible in the first image). Where we had been was now under the mountain.  Even today, three years later, they have not found all the victims, and it remains dangerously unstable.

It was certainly an adventure the three of us will never forget!

AFTERWARD: There are links for videos hyperlinked to to some of the text above.

A Valentine's Wish

 Valentine Poetry from an Ancestor

I'm not the greatest romantic.  In fact, I'm pretty bad at it.  I have written a poem or two to my bride.  But we have been married nearly forty years, so a poem or two is not what you would call a romantic.

I discovered this Valentine's Day note that my 2nd Great Grandfather, Robert Wylie, to my 2nd Great Grandmother, Betty Blume, years ago when I was clearing out my parents' house for my mom to move. This letter was written in 1857.  At that time Robert and Betty were not yet married.  Robert was twenty years old. 

The content of the poem written 169 years ago today is as follows:

I can’t forget thee now.

In happier days I saw thee fram (sic)

                Across my lonely way;

Thy life became the morning dream

                That tells of coming day;

Full long in that bright dream I dwelt

                With gay unclouded brow;

Ah! Me, the bliss of heaven I felt,

                And can’t forget thee now.

The gloom of fate’s unpitying frown

                Is on my spirit cast

My star in darkness has gone down,

                My best of life is past;

But though the seas overwhelm me quite.

                And hid my sinking prow-

I love thee mid this awful night,

                And can’t forget thee now.

Though other charms may brightly woo,

                My heart to feel their power,

And other hearts may bless them, too,

                In youth’s warm passionate hour,

On me their rays shall gently fall,

                Nor will I breathe one vow

To those – to thine – I gave them all,

                And can’t to other now.

                                                “Valentine”

Winfield, VA - Feby: 14^th 1857

Not being an expert on poetry or on the style or significance of such a poem, I asked AI Co-Pilot for a little context by asking:  "What might be lost on us today in the contents of this Valentine note from 1857?"

Here is its reply.

1. This is not casual affection — it’s dangerously earnest

Victorian courtship culture treated romantic declarations as morally weighty. A note like this wasn’t “cute.” It was closer to a vow, almost a proto‑engagement gesture.

To say: “I can’t forget thee now.” was not wistful; it was binding.

He’s essentially saying: My heart is already pledged, and I cannot undo it. That level of emotional exposure would have been understood as serious, even risky.

2. The language of “fate,” “gloom,” and “darkness” is standard Victorian melodrama

To us it reads like someone being dramatic. To them, this was the expected emotional register of romantic poetry.

Mid‑century sentimental literature leaned heavily on:

• fate, stars, storms, sinking ships, heaven and bliss, unpitying destiny

These weren’t exaggerations; they were the grammar of love.

3. The nautical metaphor (“my sinking prow”) was instantly recognizable

A “prow” is the forward-most part of a ship. To say it is sinking is to say:

• my life is going under, I am overwhelmed, I am losing direction.

Victorian readers were steeped in maritime imagery — shipwrecks, storms, and voyages were common metaphors for emotional states.

Today, we might read it as oddly dramatic. In 1857, it was a familiar emotional shorthand.

4. “Other charms may brightly woo” is a moral statement, not just a romantic one

He’s not simply saying he’s not interested in other women. He’s declaring moral fidelity.

In that era: A man’s constancy was a measure of his character. To “breathe one vow” to another woman would be dishonorable. Declaring exclusive affection was a public claim of integrity.

This is a virtue statement, not just a love statement.

5. “Valentine” as a signature was normal — and strategic

Signing simply “Valentine” was a common practice. It allowed: plausible deniability; a socially acceptable veil of anonymity; a way to express affection without violating propriety

Courtship was heavily supervised. A man could not always openly declare interest without risking scandal. A Valentine allowed him to say what he could not say aloud.

6. The emotional arc is one of lost hope, not new love

This is not a “please love me” poem. It’s a “you were my hope, and now I am undone” poem.

He writes as someone who believes: the relationship is impossible; his life’s “star” has gone down; he is resigned to sorrow; but he remains faithful

This is the emotional register of romantic tragedy, not flirtation.

7. The setting — Winfield, VA, 1857 — adds a layer we feel but don’t name

This is pre‑Civil War Virginia. People lived with: uncertainty; economic fragility; looming national conflict; strict social codes around marriage and class

A love that could not be fulfilled was not uncommon. The poem’s fatalism would have felt realistic, not theatrical.

Well - the good news is that despite the fatalism and temporary loss of hope. Their love endured. They married in 1863 and remained married until her death in 1920 a couple months before their 57th wedding anniversary.

American Revolution - Journalistic Bias

 

Boston Massacre - by Paul Revere

In the current celebration of the 250th anniversary of our United States and the polarized environment today where one news source says one thing and the other says exactly the opposite, I asked Co-Pilot AI to create a couple of fictitious news articles assuming one source to be Loyalist leaning and the other to be Patriot leaning. This is simultaneously instructive, entertaining, and foreboding. The more things change the more they stay the same.

Loyalist News Source

BOSTON — March 6, 1770 Tensions in Boston reached a tragic climax last night when an unruly mob of colonists confronted a small detachment of His Majesty’s soldiers, resulting in several civilian deaths. British officials are urging calm and calling for a full investigation, emphasizing that the soldiers were provoked, surrounded, and acting in self‑defense.

Eyewitnesses loyal to the Crown report that the crowd—many of them known agitators aligned with radical groups like the Sons of Liberty—were throwing snow, ice, clubs, and insults at the soldiers stationed outside the Customs House. As the mob pressed closer, witnesses say the soldiers feared for their lives.

Captain Thomas Preston, who was present at the scene, maintains that no order to fire was given, and that the shots were discharged only after the crowd escalated the violence. Loyalist commentators warn that colonial radicals are already attempting to politicize the tragedy, using it to inflame anti‑British sentiment and undermine lawful authority.

British officials stress that the troops were stationed in Boston to maintain order after months of harassment, vandalism, and tax resistance. They caution colonists not to rush to judgment and to remember that law and stability depend on respect for the Crown’s peacekeeping forces.

Patriot News Source

BOSTON — March 6, 1770 The streets of Boston are in mourning today after British soldiers opened fire on unarmed colonists, killing five and wounding several others in what residents are calling a brutal and unjustified attack.

Witnesses describe a tense but nonviolent gathering outside the Customs House, where townspeople had assembled to protest the ongoing military occupation of their city. The presence of armed Redcoats—sent by Parliament to enforce unpopular taxes—has long been a source of fear and resentment among Bostonians.

According to multiple colonists at the scene, the soldiers responded to verbal criticism with loaded muskets, escalating a street dispute into a deadly confrontation. Many insist that the troops fired without provocation, and that the massacre reveals the true nature of British rule: coercive, unaccountable, and indifferent to colonial lives.

Patriot leaders, including Samuel Adams, are demanding immediate justice and calling the event a turning point in the struggle for colonial rights. They argue that as long as British troops occupy American streets, no colonist is safe.

Residents gathered today at Faneuil Hall to mourn the victims and to reaffirm their commitment to resisting tyranny. The names of the dead—Crispus Attucks, Samuel Gray, James Caldwell, Samuel Maverick, and Patrick Carr—are already becoming symbols of the growing movement for liberty.

American Revolution - Tavern Talk

 

Wright Tavern

I was raised in a southern United States conservative Christian household near the middle of the 20th Century. That was only a few decades after Prohibition ended. My grandparents were raised during that prohibition period and had raised my parents to not only avoid alcohol but to avoid all appearances of it.

In my early days, we seldom ate outside our homes - but if we did it would be at a restaurant that did not serve alcohol - typically diners, buffets, or fast-food places. With no more than two or three exceptions, it would not be until I was an adult before I ate in a restaurant that had a bar in it.

Doctor Benjamin Rush produced his assessment of alcohol in An Inquiry into the Effects of Ardent Spirits in 1794. This work in some ways led to the formation of the American Temperance Society in 1826. The influence of this movement took hold in many Christian fellowships as groups like the Woman's Christian Temperance Union was formed in 1874 that tied temperance to Christian principals. Scriptures like Ephesians 5:18 that says, "...be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess, but be filled with the Spirit" and Proverbs 23 which describes the dangerous allure of alcohol were used to connect alcohol consumption to unchristian behavior. 

These associations were not always true as is evident from my fourth great-grandfather, Timothy Bates, who in the early 19th Century was a Christian minister and a distiller of whiskey - sometimes holding worship services in his distillery with a whiskey barrel serving as a pulpit. About a hundred years later, in 1920, the United States banned consumable alcohol for the good of its people. So, a few decades after that experiment was repealed, words like Pub, Bar, or Tavern were still synonymous with places good Christians should not frequent. Yet to Colonial America - the very world that shaped the early American church - taverns were indispensable.

Colonial America, Taverns were the hub of social activity. At a tavern you could get food, a drink, a warm fire, and often a bed and a stable for your horse. Not only that you could get the news from the next county or from the big cities.  Newspapers were shared. Political discussions would abound.  Business transactions would be made. Taverns were the place to have your mail sent a picked up. The local tavern was the place to see and be seen. 

Taverns often had rooms set aside for meetings.  Committees of Safety would often meet there to discuss the needs for and of local militia and Committees of Correspondence would meet to determine how to maintain communication. In 1783, the Confederation Congress fled Philadelphia for fear that British forces would arrest them. They reconvened in Trenton, New Jersey at the French Arms Tavern. 

We still gather — but rarely in the same room, hearing the same news, sharing the same fire. The tavern once held a community together. Today, our conversations scatter across screens and platforms, and the shared civic hearth has grown dim. The Colonial tavern, once indispensable, has become a relic of a time gone by. 

Genealogy - Antebellum Ambrotype

 

Antebellum Ambrotype - 1856-1860

In a collection of things my wife received after her grandfather died in 1998 was this ambrotype. 

It was a small ornately decorated thermoplastic box containing an image of a young man in his twenties holding a large book - maybe a bible.  He was dressed in mid-19th century formal attire. His slightly ruddy cheeks are not a natural feature of the photograph but a result of the ambrotype development process, which often included subtle hand‑tinting. Ambrotypes themselves were actually negative images on glass; photographers added dark backings and artistic touches to make them appear as positive portraits.

As soon as I saw it, I knew it had history - but did anyone know the history? 

The only person living that might know who it belonged to was my mother-in-law.  Unfortunately, all she remembered about it was that it was a gadget to entertain her during church as a child. The evidence of that was clearly displayed on the box where purple and pink crayon wax was built up on the brass gilding and the box lining.

I turned to clues and possibilities.  Ambrotypes with thermoplastic cases were commercially popular between 1856 and 1860. The young man in the image appeared to be in his mid-20s.  This meant that it was a young man born around 1835. 

Next, this person was probably a relative of either John Robinson or Mary Jones - my wife's grandparents. It seemed most probable that it was a relative of her grandmother, since she would have had the image in her purse and been entertaining her daughter with it to keep her quiet during church. 

Here are the possibilities for ancestors of Mary.

Leonadis Jones, her paternal grandfather, was born in 1840.  If it was Leonadis he was closer to 18 years old when the image was made and the image looks as if he is older than that.  

John Meadows, her maternal grandfather, was born in 1836. John, therefore, is a reasonable candidate for an ambrotype.

If it were either Leonadis or John, why did Mary come into the possession of it?  Mary was the ninth of ten children. Mary's father was the second child of Leonadis.  Mary's mother was the last child of John Meadows and he had come to live with Mary's uncle Albert in his declining years. Nonetheless, the youngest child may have been the most appropriate person to have inherited an image of her grandfather.

Here are the possibilities of John Robinson's ancestors.

John's paternal grandfather, Balum, was also born in 1840. We have images of him that do not seem to be an aged version of the young man in the ambrotype.

John's maternal grandfather, Andrew Hunter, was born in 1855, so he is certainly too young to have been the young man in the ambrotype. Andrew, though, was the son of James Marshall Hunter who was born in 1826. James had died during the Civil War and was a Methodist minister. While it is tempting to imagine this as a portrait of this preacher, the path required for this to have passed down to this particular household makes him, at best, a romantic long‑shot.

All in all, John Meadows seems the most likely candidate for the ambrotype. In the end, I may never know the young man’s name. The ambrotype has outlived every person who once recognized his face, and now it sits in my hands as both a puzzle and a reminder. Objects like this contain the quiet, undocumented threads of family life. A child’s crayon marks, a grandmother’s purse, and a photograph saved for reasons no one bothered to explain.

It is fascinating - the smallest details are the first to disappear. We assume everyone knows what we know, until suddenly no one does. So, write things down. Tell the stories. Label photographs. Even the unimportant things matter, because they are the connections that keep a family’s history from slipping into silence.

American Revolution - Independent Green Mountain Boys!

Catamount Tavern, Bennington, VT

"I've never seen Vermont.  I bet it's nice, though - all that snow!" That was from White Christmas, but it fits my situation. So, all I have to show for a picture is this late 1800s photo of the Catamount Tavern in Bennington, VT that I collected from the internet.

Even though I haven't been there, I accepted the responsibility for maintaining a Wikitree space page related to the Revolutionary War on the Green Mountain Boys - who hailed from the region that became the State of Vermont, the fourteenth state of the Union. The region was originally named Vert Mont, which directly translates to Green Mountain, by Samuel de Champlain when he mapped out the region in the 1600s.

The Green Mountain Boys were individualist from the start. Ethan Allen (who you have probably heard of as a furniture brand), Remember Baker, and Seth Warner formed a militia, initially to defend settlers from those possessing New York land grants from taking "their" lands. So, to them the British were just another outsider trying to seize control! They saw an opportunity to strike at them at Fort Ticonderoga. Benedict Arnold joined forces with them as they had a common enemy. 

The capture of Ticonderoga occurred in May of 1775, very early in the American resistance. The success of Arnold and Allen was extremely consequential as it provided a much-needed supply of heavy guns and ammunition. Henry Knox quickly made good use of them. After the success at Ticonderoga some accompanied Arnold on a disastrous attempt to secure Quebec. Later in 1777, Seth Warner commanded many of them at Hubbardton and Bennington which contributed to the surrender of British General John Burgoyne at Saratoga on 17 Oct. 1777. These early victories inspired hope and supplies that would be needed to sustain the colonist in the war that would wage on for six more years.

Vermont and the Green Mountain Boys, though they had fought with the other colonist did not immediately choose to join the Union. Vermont declared itself independent in 1777 forming the Vermont Republic. New York's continued claim on the territory delayed any admission. Until that was settled, with concessions from New York, they would not ratify the US Constitution. This happened in 1791.

I've never seen Vermont. Snow or no snow, I really didn't think I had any connection to Vermont. As I have looked over some of the individuals that were involved - I found that I did have some connections. One connection was quite close. I am a first cousin (seven times removed, of course) with Steven Fay. He owned the Catamount Tavern where the Green Mountain Boys exploits were planned.

Afterwards:  My connection to Stephen Fay is as follows -

My grandfather, Herbert Henry McCown is the son of Mary Ellen Wylie, the daughter of Robert White Wylie , the son of Elizabeth (Brown) Wylie, the daughter of Oliver Brown, (who made good use of the artillery Col. Knox collected), the son of Benjamin Wellington Brown, the son of Ruhamah Brown, the daughter of Benjamin Wellington - who was Steven Fay's maternal grandfather.  

 

Happy Thanksgiving - Pollo y Papas

Pollo y Papas 

Thanksgiving is nearing. Today we are already preparing some of the foods that can be made early. 

Thinking of Thanksgiving we usually forego thinking of the detailed historical aspects it, like was the first one in the new world in 1621 in Massachusetts with the Pilgrims or was it in 1619 in Virginia when John Woodleefe landed with thirty-five settlers in Berkeley, VA.  Maybe you go further back to 1565 when Pedro Menedez de Aviles participated in a thanksgiving celebration at Saint Augustine, FL.  It is highly unlikely that you even think about Rene Goulaine de Laudonniere's thanksgiving near Jacksonville, FL in 1564 or Tristan de Luna's initiation of a thanksgiving mass upon landing near Pensacola, FL in 1559.

Instead, what we usually think about is food.  Thinking of food recently, I was having a conversation about some unusual foods that I have eaten, for someone from the US anyway. (For the curious some of those include: Alligator, iguana, squirrel, rabbit, guinea pig, turtle and insects.) That conversation led to the most interesting meals that I've enjoyed.

Thinking about that I realized the most interesting meals have nothing to do with the quality of the food. Those interesting meals are interesting because of where I am or who I am with. Let me share some of them with you.

The first was in Chattanooga at a place called the Chattanooga Choo-Choo. I was about 10 years old. It was special because, at the time, we never went out to eat at anything resembling a fancy place - because of affordability and because we were children. I remember the food came out on something called a "Lazy Susan" - which seemed such a strange name to me.

The next highly memorable meal was in Trinidad, West Indies. I had gone there with a group from church on a mission trip.  One of the local families invited me to their home.  The mangos weren't ripe yet, but we peeled one in the yard and ate it with a little salt on it.  When we were invited inside, we ate a communal dish where we would dip the pita-like bread into the thick curry chicken.  We used no forks or knives - just our fingers.

A third memorable meal was in England.  I was visiting in the home of some friends my wife and her parents had made while they were living there.  The hostess brought out several courses as we laughed and shared subtle and humorous differences between Americans and the British.

The final and most cherished memory is the one pictured in this blog. I was, again on a mission trip, this time visiting Machachi, Ecuador. My one-on-one Spanish is and was good enough to facilitate necessary communication.  However, it was not and is not good enough to keep up with the conversations of multiple Spanish speakers in their conversations. I knew we were going to visit Laguna Limpiopungo, on Cotopaxi but other than that, I didn't know our plans precisely.

We had visited several families there. At one of them, the young man was just finishing cleaning a chicken. He was spraying the feathers out of the walkway near his house. I had no idea that I would soon be eating that same chicken.

Later that afternoon after driving to the lake and walking about portions of the nature walk there - we got back in our cars and trucks and made our way to a plateau behind some large boulders to shield us from the fierce cold winds.  There we sat down to handfuls (or in my case the pot lid for a plate) of boiled chicken and potatoes.  One of my hostesses broke off pieces of the chicken and passed it to each person there.

After eating we sat around enjoying the moments and watched the children as they played among the boulders. "King of the Hill" was the game to play.

I didn't understand all the conversation, but I relished in the moment, in the place, and in the welcoming hospitality. Though it wasn't Thanksgiving - it was a moment I am thankful to have experienced.

Happy Thanksgiving! Pass the relish and relish the moments!